Beginners Guide To Android: Rooting Your Device

A series where I will post basic beginner guides to Android. There will be guides coming out regularly so keep up with UltraLinx by following us on Twitter or Facebook. If you have any suggestions leave them in the comments below.

A question you will mostly ask yourself when considering rooting your device is, why should I root my device?

There are many reasons as to why you may root, however some of these reasons may not apply to very new devices.

Updates

One place where Android doesn't do so well is updates. This usually isn't your devices fault but the carrier and manufacturers fault. When a new version of Android comes out carriers and manufacturers usually want to add their own software into the update before it gets to your device. This process takes months and before you know it, another version of Android comes out so you end up being two updates behind.
When you root your device you can upgrade to the latest software a lot sooner and have the latest Android features.

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Making Your Device Faster

If you root your device you can make your device faster by overclocking your CPU. The CPU is what mainly gives your device speed, however there are other factors which can affect the speed of your device. Overclocking your CPU can be useful if you want to get that extra juice out of your device however it does also come with its drawbacks. Overclocking your CPU too high can overheat and damage your device, it can also drain your battery.

More Space For Apps

If your an app-oholic like I am, older devices usually don't have enough space for over 50 apps never mind the 250,000 that there are in the Android market. By rooting you can get something called "Apps2SD" which stores your apps on your memory card. Or you can free up space within your device, the internal storage, for more apps.

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Extra Features

When you have rooted there is usually a number of custom ROMs which you can apply to your device. Custom ROMs is the software which runs your whole device, the device depends on it to function properly. Custom ROMs usually come with some amazing features which take advantage of Android and your device. Features such as themes, camera hacks, ability to change the colour of your LED and others.

How To Root

There are so many devices out there so there is no one straight forward method for every device. The best place to go to find out how to root your device is XDA Developers. They have a section for nearly every Android device out there so you will usually be able to find out how to root your device and how to get the most out of it.

Custom ROMs

As mentioned eariler, custom ROMs are the software which your device depends on to function.

Two very popular ROMs out there are Cyanogen and MIUI. Both ROMs are available for many popular devices out there and they have amazing features which you would not usually see.

MIUI is more for the people who love design and want their device to look beautiful. It features a very nice pretty UI which you can also customize with themes. You can also have custom lockscreens, check out the video which demonstrates a handful of custom lockscreens.

CyanogenMod is more the advanced users and has features that enable you to completely customize the device to its fullest. It has a user base of over 500,000 which makes it the most popular ROM for Android devices.

If you have any questions about rooting or feel like you could add to this post, leave a comment below.